Who Knows Where Our Sin Will Lead?

How lightly do I judge my sin? Should I only be concerned about the ‘big ones’ and give myself grace and mercy in the ‘small ones’? Small sins are those I barely notice or have become accustomed to because they really don’t seem to affect those around me. Or maybe those around me have just ‘accepted’ them as “Oh well, that’s just Kevin being Kevin”. But I am afraid my inextinguishable propensity for ‘giving myself grace’ will eventually lead me to the conclusion that no sin I commit would ever be self-judged as ‘big’.

In conversation with a fellow brother I confessed one of most often committed sins was the one of Impatience and its twin brother, the flash of Anger that can come with the slightest mishap or inconvenience. For instance, I reach to pick up my keys and unintentionally knock them to the floor is almost always met with an internal jolt of frustration, anger, maybe even cursing. As I said gave this example I could see in his eyes a look of surprise. I am guessing his look was expressing the thought, “So that’s it? That’s your besetting sin? If that’s your biggest concern …“.

I went on to make my case. I told him that no man wakes up content one day and then proceeds to look at pornography for 6 hours a day, day after day in a seemingly unstoppable addiction. No man wakes up one day happily married and drives over to his secretary’s house to plan the rest of their lives together. No man wakes up one day content with what the Lord has provided and drives to the gambling hall to wager his entire paycheck on Black 13. No, the man who is now addicted to pornography began glancing at women’s exercise magazines or underwear ads or the cheerleaders at the game. The man who runs off with his secretary begins his journey by complaining about his wife’s moods or cooking or weight or money management. The man who gambles his life into an empty bank account and a house foreclosure started by thinking, “Well, I was going to the movie, but instead I’ll spend the same amount at the casino … I mean, it’s all ‘entertainment’”. None of these men woke up content and ruined their lives in a day or with one thought. None of these men thought in the beginning their ‘little sin’ of peaking at another woman or pointing out their wife’s sin or spending a little money on an innocent bet would ever be beyond their control.

So I looked at him at said, “We don’t know where our sin will lead”. Maybe my Impatience will end in me being so discontent and frustrated that I deny He even exists or that if He does, He surely doesn’t have any thoughts or love for me. The fact of the matter is I don’t know where it will lead. The fact of the matter is God would be found Just in allowing me to reap the consequences of my ‘little sins’. The fact of the matter is the most terrifying words God could say to me is, “Because of your persistent impatience I am turning you over to yourself”. I must take every sin and all my sins seriously for I don’t know how far I could fall and, God forbid, I be turned over to myself.